


We carve our names in the playground dirt

by mercurine



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Introspection, Kissing, M/M, POV Iwaizumi Hajime, POV Second Person, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29803353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercurine/pseuds/mercurine
Summary: You are seven and gap-toothed, thirteen with your acne spots, seventeen and less than six feet, nineteen and irrevocably in love.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	We carve our names in the playground dirt

**Author's Note:**

> [Lover, Please Stay](https://open.spotify.com/track/2BYiebB5e5zuQ5BSmemJpD?si=vSLqnA5BR1ueaiQO79726Q&utm_source=copy-link)
> 
> cw: mentions of broken body parts (specifically knees) and quite a few icarus references

You sit on your twin bed at 10:59 at night and hold your Aoba Johsai graduation certificate in one hand and a book by Takashi Utsui in the other.

You are usually asleep by this time, not used to staying awake for very long but today is the end of an era.

Hanamaki, Matsukawa, Tooru and you had grabbed a pack of meat buns after your graduation ceremony, it would be the last time the four of you would do that but Hanamaki and Matsukawa had forbidden Tooru from saying a single sentimental word and he had squawked in indignation and you had been reminded yet again by how much you would miss this, miss them.

Restless, with the contents of your body fighting against the prison of your skin, you pace, then grab a volleyball, your shoes and keys and make your way to your neighborhood playground.

It hasn't changed much over the years, the paint on the slide had gotten a new coat when you had been thirteen years old but had gotten back to the business of flaking over the years, the swings creak a little now but work just as well as they did when you had been seven and the new merry-go-round that had sprung up last year lays still and silent under the crescent moon. 

You are seven and thirteen and seventeen all at once, under the sickle of the nights' moon that hangs in the sky, ready to cut down the ghosts of your childhood. 

And if you were seven and thirteen and seventeen and this playground had been your childhood, so had the volleyball between your palms, the volleyball that you are restlessly practicing receives with in the middle of the night, the receives that have become muscle memory and the ball that has become an extension of your arm, your self.

And to think of childhood, to think of volleyball, to think of this playground with its creaking swings and the flaking paint on the slide, you cannot think of it without thinking of Oikawa Tooru.

Because Tooru, Tooru has been a part of every single childhood memory that you can remember. A fixture, a still image, the glare of the flash from a camera in your life, the glow of silver nitrite in French noir films, they are all Tooru, as much muscle memory as volleyball, as much a part of your self. 

At age 7, when an exhibition match at the Sendai Arena had plucked the nebulae right out of the sky and planted them in his eyes, growing till they swallowed his irises then his pupils, his sclera - till all that was left was the night sky within his eyes, iridescence contained, trapped for a soul so hungry that mere celestial bodies could not compete.

At age 8, when Tooru had barely begun to set and the ball had found its home on his face more often than it did in the sky. Skinned knees and sore palms and red forearms the marks of his childhood, of your childhood as well.

At age 12, when he had applied to Kitagawa Daiichi and you had followed, as you always did, as you were but helpless to do - it was Tooru after all.

At age 13, when the playground slide got a new coat of paint and the both of you wore a cobalt to match, when you got the beginnings of acne spots on your forehead and Tooru shot upwards, palms reaching up, up, up towards the sky so willing to be consumed by him, to caress him in its colours and refuse to let him touch the ground. When Tooru, beloved by the sky, cold and cruel though it was, uncaring of the fact that the wax would melt and his wings would burn the longer he stayed up there, was made prisoner to a cobalt that loved him so much it would kill him. 

At age 14, when Oikawa Tooru had met the mountain Ushijima Wakatoshi and had found no footholds, no pitons to grasp onto on his single, solitary path upwards. When the sky that had grasped him by the palms had let go and watched him shatter his knees on the ground. The gods in the sky had loved Tooru so much that they had let him go, subsumed themselves in Shiratorizawa purple, eclipsed themselves in twilight. _"Let go of your ambition boy, this wall is too tall for you to climb"_ they'd said and Tooru, being Tooru had crawled on shattered knees to grab the tail end of a comet in the sky- reflected in the pupils of his eyes and told the gods in the sky to go fuck themselves with his callused fingers and you had wound your arms under his shoulders, picked him up by his immobile knees and vowed to yourself that even if he was no longer the sky's beloved, he would always be yours.

At age 15, when you had found Tooru stuck between an immovable object and an unstoppable force. When Kageyama Tobio had emerged like a pearl from within an oyster from the bottom of the seas and Tooru had looked at the universe - shaped like a volleyball - held in the cradle of Kageyama's hands, looked at his own hands - blistered, cuticles cut to the quick, calluses upon calluses on honey-milk hands, a pianist's fingers in an another life, and deemed himself to be nothing but excruciatingly ordinary, no, Oikawa Tooru's hands were not made to hold universes he had told himself.

At age 15, when Tooru had found the wax between his gold feathers melting and had plunged into the arms of the sea and found himself drowning. When Tooru had methodically, systematically taken apart the bones in his knees, he had not needed the sky to shatter them for him this time, and refused to put them back together. When you had picked up the bones, piece by piece and stitched them back together for him, as you would find yourself doing for many many others in the future and had headbutt him in the face for good measure, which you would not do for many many others in the future and had, as would remain forever unbeknownst to you, breathed the celestial matter back into his eyes. 

At age 15, when you had watched Tooru try to paddle to the surface of the sea with his stitched together limbs, his patchwork organs and you had not known that he had still been drowning, still chained to the seabed by the ankles as the sky turned purple yet again and Tooru had built a list with two names and the hunger of the starved. When you had watched him smile, sincere for once, watched him attribute his momentary success to his spikers and had, at that moment, loved him more than you could bear.

At age 16, when cobalt melted into Aoba Johsai teal and you had met Hanamaki and Matsukawa and had begun to suspect that you would repent the next three years to come, likely to spend it with a constant headache.

At age 17, when the suspicions of your sixteen year old self had begun to prove themselves correct and Tooru had continued to shoot upwards, always reaching for his elusive stars and you had begun to suspect that you were maybe not so different from all those girls that made him lunches and handed him envelopes with heart shaped stickers on the flap that he always read but never accepted, gracious for the way he liked his ego to be stroked but never cruel enough to pretend to reach for anything but the crown and the sceptre; his hunger was reserved for the volleyball court only.

At age 18, when your acne had more or less cleared up but your hair had begun to form a will of it's own and you had found 6 feet just out of reach, Tantalus embodied for another few centimetres. When you had found the name Takashi Utsui and a few nebulae had sprouted like roots from plowed soil from within your eyes. When Tooru had grown luminescent and really, now it was too late to say you weren't like all those girls that made him lunches and handed him envelopes with heart shaped stickers on the flap that he always read but never accepted and this had pissed you off more than you could begin to imagine. Because, really, the utter idiocy, the sheer stupidity of your heart to pick a quicker pace, your pulse to thud just a little bit louder at Tooru's proximity, at Tooru was unacceptable and frankly, just plain weird, for this was Tooru. 

Oikawa Tooru, _your Tooru_ who could not eat ice cream without spilling at least half of it down his shirt, _your Tooru_ who demanded that everyone look at him while he sang, or rather enacted bad karaoke, _your Tooru_ who loved volleyball so much you knew he would chase it into oblivion, chase it into nothingness, chase it forever.

At age 18, when you had watched the sun crown Tooru - _"Grand King"_ he had been called, coronated by who would be his executioner and when you had watched the past wreathed in the ghost of cobalt stand across the net from you, Kageyama in his own ill-fitting crown.

At age 18, when you had watched the embodiment of a wildfire consume the entire width of the court only to be doused by the water you had helped amass and you began to realise that maybe Tooru was still drowning. 

At age 18, when you and Tooru found your wings pinned by a single southpaw, crushed to dust and ashes between the beak of an eagle and you thought that sometimes, maybe there was nothing to volleyball but drowning.

At age 18, when you witnessed Tooru's rebirth at the hands of a mortal with a jersey number 13, hands that would create something like immortality, something like a man in blue, or a grand king meant to surpass the gods in the skies themselves - the gods that had shunned and warned Tooru into considering defeat, the gods that had shattered his knees - for the sky was not the limit for Oikawa Tooru, who would make himself limitless. 

At age 18, when Tooru had shed the shackles around his ankles trapping him to the seabed and crows had helped him rise above the surface of the water in order to peck out his eyes, peck out your eyes as well.

At age 18, when, for a moment, you had known nothing but shame for not having answered Tooru's set - beautiful, commanding, sculpted for you, the embodiment of his trust, the embodiment of his freedom; When you had been unable to complete the circle, finish his set, the last spike of your high school career, the last set of his - his sets that carry the weight of his trust, a trust that is not soft or delicate but one that is violent, roiling, a tsunami in its insistence, his trust that you have been carrying for over a decade, that you have had the pleasure and pain of knowing, that you had failed - torn apart by a murder of crows.

At age 18, when Tooru had risen as a phoenix and told you he planned to fly across the sea and you had told him to keep going, to forget hesitation and keep moving forward. At age 18, when you had made your vows _(partner, absolute best setter)_ and a promise for good measure _(but if we're ever on opposite sides, I'll do everything to defeat you)_ and fallen in love all over again over the sound of his fist against yours - the first goodbye.

At age 19, you are sitting on the edge of one of the playground swings and bouncing the volleyball on your joined forearms, when you see Oikawa Tooru turn the corner of the street with an identical volleyball between his palms and on his way to the playground of your childhoods.

He's surprised to see you, his eyes widening in momentary shock at something so coincidental that it appears almost fated. It is eleven-something o'clock after all and Tooru's shadow leans sleepily against the ground under the lone playground streetlight.

"Iwa-chan it's 11:15, isn't it past your bedtime?" he singsongs and really, this is all your traitor heart's fault, you cannot believe Oikawa Tooru is standing in front of you in flannel pyjamas and an E.T. t-shirt that you have contemplated burning numerous times and your pulse is choosing to go into overtime over this dumbass.

"Shut up Shittykawa, what are you doing here? Isn't your flight tomorrow, why aren't you sleeping dumbass?" you question and these are all valid, reasonable questions that a reasonable person like you should not be asking someone so utterly unreasonable as Tooru.

"I couldn't sleep Iwa-chan and I don't even know why I got this volleyball, it's too dark to even pass" he whines, pouting that stupid pout of his that you wish didn't affect you as badly as it does, as he comes to sit in the swing adjacent to yours, kicking at the ground and picking up a little speed.

"Shittykawa didn't I tell you to sleep better, look at your sleep schedule now" you chide and this is an ongoing refrain of yours that you really wish wasn't.

"Hey, it's my last day here, could you at least not call me 'shittykawa' ?!" he squawks and this is also a familiar refrain, so familiar that it aches to hear, aches to know that it might be the last time you'll hear it.

"I'll call you what you are, what else should I call you then?" you retort and you are seven and Tooru's putting a beetle down your shirt and you're going to get your revenge in the form of ice cold water down his pants.

"Call me my name, I have a great one" he sniffs, haughty, demanding. The banter is as much muscle memory as the both of you are to each other, as volleyball is to the both of you.

"Okay then, _Tooru_ " you say, a deviation. You never pretend to acquiesce even as you do exactly the same, and you hardly use his first name.

You watch as he swings around, swift, jerky. His eyes are blown wide in surprise, the second time in less than thirty minutes, there's not much that can catch Tooru by surprise. You don't know whether to be smug or not about it, not when your breath is coming a little more shallow than it did a minute ago and your heart is galloping at speeds you do not think is healthy (not for Shittykawa, dammit), not when you're as surprised as him and a little scared.

"Say it again" he asks, leaning dangerously towards you on his swing and there's a breathless quality to his voice that you don't want to consider.

"I'm not a fucking broken recorder Shittykawa" you say instead and you think maybe he'll give you some room to breathe now, squawk and whine and harangue you a little bit more and the both of you'd go right back to normal. Right back to normal.

_"Say it again"_ he insists instead, leaning even closer and you can see all the specks of honey brown in the chocolate of his eyes, all the maple leaves and chestnut flecks too. He's staring at you like he stares at the volleyball on its inevitable trajectory downwards after a serve toss and your breath catches in your throat because even as he insists and you deny, all you can think is _Tooru, Tooru, Tooru_.

_"Tooru"_ you breathe and you know he's not asking for just the name, he's asking for the acknowledgement in your tone, he's pulling on the unnameable, indefinable gravity between the two of you. He's digging up ages seven and thirteen and seventeen and holding them up for the both of you to see, he's asking for a declaration and you have never been able to say no.

_"Hajime"_ he whispers back in his own declaration, his own attestation. It is acknowledgement and claiming and the weight of more than a decade that lies between the breaths that you've both exhaled.

_"Tooru''_ you say again, just for the sake of it and watch as his pupils dilate, as they dart quick as a flutterbird, down to your lips and back up to your eyes. Nervous, breathless, this is new territory for the both of you, you are nineteen and he's eighteen and you are both just boys, _just boys._

_"Hajime"_ he whispers, always wanting the last word and you do not know which one of you it is that leans in or which one of you it is that closes their eyes first but all of a sudden, your lips are touching his lips and you think _'goddammit of course it's Tooru, like it could be anyone else'._

The first contact is awkward, he's leaning far from his swing and your lips merely touch, pillow soft against his and the both of you are just sharing exhales, it's not a kiss really, it's an epiphany. 

It's not a kiss but you say _Tooru_ again like that will make him corporeal tomorrow and he gets up from his swing, clambering into your lap with his long, long legs on either side of your hips. 

The sickle of the moon may have cut down your childhood today but it has given you much, much more you think as you reach upwards to cradle his honey-milk skin between your palms and pull him down back home. He leans down, acquiescent in the face of this new possibility and meshes his mouth with yours, his hands through your hair. 

His mouth moves against yours slowly, tentatively, he's more experienced but you can tell he wants you to take the lead and you hold onto his waist, pull him flush, deepen the kiss, poke at the seams of his lips with your tongue.

He's gasping, shallow little breaths and your head is spinning, you are weightless and your tongue is in his mouth, coiling against his, raising goosebumps up your arms and with every exhale of his you inhale and with every exhale of yours he inhales so that the both of you are never not touching, you are entwined around him, have been for over a decade and he, you and the both of you are _forever, forever, forever._

It is approximately eleven-something o'clock, the neither of you have bothered to check and your volleyballs lay at your feet in the grass. You sit on the swing in your childhood playground with your childhood best friend in your arms, you are both sharing breaths as you have shared all your lives and you are both more holding onto each other than you are kissing, with nothing and no one but the swings and the slide, the merry-go-round and the ancient silver sickle up in the sky as witness - it's the last goodbye.

You are seven and gap-toothed, thirteen with your acne spots, seventeen and less than six feet, nineteen and irrevocably in love.

It is the end of an era.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !!!!
> 
> this is my first fic for this fandom, or well any fandom really and even with a bunch of incomplete drafts on my notes app, finishing something feels really good even if it was done all in one go in what felt something like a fever dream lmao.
> 
> this is essentially my 3k tribute to oikawa tooru ig and it was all a sleepless blur.
> 
> i'm pretty sure there are a bunch of mistakes and i'm kind of on the line on whether i got their voices or not so pls forgive me and i hope you enjoyed reading this!!
> 
> feel free to tell me your thoughts in the comments or if you'd rather come yell them at me on Tumblr.
> 
> http://firefromtheether.tumblr.com


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